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Dessert

Dixie Biscuit

A Southern biscuit made with flour, salt, baking powder, lard, egg white, sweet milk, and brushed with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Dixie Biscuit

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift and measure the flour.

  2. Add salt and baking powder, then sift again.

  3. Rub in the cold lard until smooth.

  4. Beat the egg white and stir it into the sweet milk.

  5. Mix the milk mixture into the flour with a spoon.

  6. Scrape the dough onto a board and toss until smooth enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and brush melted butter over the top.

  2. Fold the dough over and prick with a fork.

  3. Cut with a biscuit cutter.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Swans down flour
Provides the structure that holds the biscuit together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the biscuits rise and become light.
Cold lard
Rubbed into the flour to create tenderness and a flaky texture.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps bind the dough and supports its rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.

The step that matters

Rub in the cold lard until smooth. Cold fat stays in small pieces within the flour, and as it melts in the oven it leaves layers that make the biscuit flaky. Overworking the dough or letting the fat warm can make the biscuits tough and dense.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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